Pentagon plan for Afghanistan: More than Obama wants, but enough?

The Pentagon reportedly has presented Obama with a plan for 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan after 2014. Below that figure, officials say, imperils the mission. But some analysts say more are needed.

|
Scott Olson/Reuters/File
A US Marine watches as an Osprey arrives at Forward Operating Base Shukvani, Afghanistan, in 2012.

The Pentagon has presented the White House with what is being described as an all-or-nothing plan to leave 10,000 US troops in Afghanistan after the deadline at the end of 2014 for the withdrawal of all US combat forces, according to media reports.

The number is a higher figure than has long been thought to be remotely palatable to the White House, but still significantly lower than what some analysts say is necessary to guarantee security in the country. Previous reports had put the figures at between 4,000 and 8,000 troops, with NATO allies to contribute another 3,000.

The troops would then be withdrawn by 2016, according to the reports in the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

The message from top US military officials is reportedly that if President Obama doesn’t approve their 10,000-troop request, then he shouldn’t bother sending any troops at all.

Supporters of this plan argue that any troop level short of that figure would not provide enough force security, logistics specialists, or transportation troops – what the military calls “enablers” – for the remaining troops tasked with training Afghan national security forces to do their job.

There are a number of top US officials, however, who are said to be taking issue with the Pentagon plan put forward by Gen. Joseph Dunford, commander of US forces in Afghanistan.

Vice President Joseph Biden is said to be pushing for a smaller counter-terrorism force, similar to a plan that he advocated for earlier in Mr. Obama’s presidency.

At the time, Obama rejected the plan, choosing instead a surge of US troops into Afghanistan. There are currently some 37,500 US troops in the country, along with 19,000 troops from other countries. Another 5,000 US troops are slated to leave the country by the end of February.

But since then the US has repeatedly butted heads with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is refusing to sign a bilateral security agreement (BSA) that includes the provisions for immunity from prosecution for US troops that must be in place before the US agrees to keep any forces in the country post-2014.

In response – and in the hopes perhaps of frightening Mr. Karzai – the White House has floated the idea of a “zero option,” leaving no US troops.

Even in the face of such a possibility, some analysts argue that the 10,000-troop figure is too few troops to maintain the stability of the country, even after nearly a dozen years of war.

“I think that 10,000 troops is a really low-end estimate of what is required in order to maintain US security interests in Afghanistan,” says Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C.

“Though it seems like a lot to an American civilian, it is actually not sufficient to accomplish a counterterrorism mission of the type that would actually keep the border reasonably secure – therefore, we are risking the re-growth of Al Qaeda.”

Instead, Dr. Kagan says she would prefer to see a force level of closer to 25,000 troops, and adds that US military commanders constrained themselves in asking for less.

That said, fewer than 10,000 troops would “put at risk the very mission that they have assigned to their forces.”

Proponents of fewer US troops in the country – as well as proponents of a zero option – argue that it is difficult to see what could be accomplished in another two years that a dozen years of war have not been able to achieve.

To this, advocates say that there is the matter of the presidential elections scheduled for April. More troops will give the new president a smoother transition, as well as further train Afghan security forces “to see to it that they can continue to protect Afghanistan over the long term,” Kagan says.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a Monitor-hosted breakfast for reporters Friday that should the Pentagon reduce its force levels to 8,000 or 10,000 troops, the US military’s way forward will then consist of a “geographically limited counterinsurgency combined with a very aggressive counter-terrorism effort.”

To do a counter-terrorism strategy with fewer troops, as Mr. Biden reportedly is suggesting, would not allow enough of a support infrastructure, Gates argues, since America still has not cultivated enough of a human intelligence network of local contacts after a dozen years of war to allow, say, Special Operations Forces to go after enemy leaders without more US troops to support them.

There are “a large number of people in the White House who just want to pull the plug on Afghanistan altogether and just get the hell out and leave no residual force,” Mr. Gates said. “And I just think that would be a terrible mistake.”

A residual force along the lines of 8,000 to 10,000 troops would be “large enough to actually do something,” Gates said. “Whether it’s advise and train the Afghans with a limited counter-terrorism capability providing some logistics and intelligence support and so on, the important thing is the message.”

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Pentagon plan for Afghanistan: More than Obama wants, but enough?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/2014/0122/Pentagon-plan-for-Afghanistan-More-than-Obama-wants-but-enough
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe